My friend’s brother has set up a blog for restaurant reviews and musings – achefabroad.com – well, two can have a wild stab in the dark at that game (it might be worth reading the linked post before continuing. There are Subtle References to it below. Well, at least one, anyway…)

Let me start by saying that I’m not a chef, which Neil is, but I do like food. I might not know my jus from my runny sauce (and please don’t tell me) but I know my ice cream from my sorbet and that’s all the qualification I need for this blog, whose audience already lags far behind Neil with up to 20 views from 3 continents. And that’s per post, readers, per post.

Last week we were on holiday in the Algarve. The southernmost region of Portugal is well known for its Piri-Piri chicken and grilled sardines, both of which we sampled. We also tried the cataplana, which sadly wasn’t that good, with only one prawn per diner. However, we also stumbled upon a couple of restaurants with Proper Food, so here are my thoughts on one of them.

ONZE is a Mediterranean-Greek restaurant overlooking the town square/beach in the centre of Carvoeiro. (I want to make a quip about turning it up to 11 here, but inspiration escapes me. Partly because the try-hard that that implies isn’t appropriate here. Attempts in the comments if you’re inspired!) The staff were friendly, and as is often the case in Abroad, made a big old fuss of the children. The decor was slightly alarming, with “high fashion” pictures of women with food. One in particular which showed a topless woman with a big fish slung round her shoulders made me quite… Itchy. Let’s not dwell too much on that, though, eh. I was sat with my back to it after all, and the otherwise top combo of dark wood and white marble was pleasing.

There wasn’t a tasting menu, otherwise I would have had it – we had to settle for menu items instead.

The bread was lovely, but as always, there wasn’t enough. It was ciabatta-style and they gave us 4 slices. I don’t know whether they expect the children to not have any, but it didn’t seem like much, especially when Lily could trough a whole loaf on her own.

For my starter I had a thing I can’t remember the name of, but it was described as filo parcels of Greek black pudding. They were definitely filo parcels, but weren’t like any black pudding I’ve ever had. They were light, caramel-y and had pine nuts in, and were gorgeous.

For my main course I had the moussaka which was a fine example of its genre. It was quite filling, though, and I left some of the potatoes… Lily had a margarita pizza which was heavy on the cheese and presented on a mickey mouse plate. Joel had tomato-sauce pasta, which was a bit big for him. I can’t remember what Steve had, but it all looked lovely. The food presentation lived up to the stylish interior design, but without the raw fish overtones.

To drink, because Steve was driving, I had the House Rose. I have no idea what it was, other than a generous glass of rose wine, but it was just the right kind of light crispness to go with the weather.

I wasn’t going to have dessert, but given that Lily was determined to have the chocolate cake with melted chocolate mousse in the middle, I let them tell me the dessert specials, and when I heard about pineapple with coriander sauce, how could I say no? Joel and I shared the thinly sliced pineapple (“it looks like paper… but it’s pineapple!”) with syrupy (and yummy, with a mere hint of coriander) sauce and a dollop of pineapple sorbet, as we were advised that a single one was more than enough for two, especially if one of you is six. I chose not to have the “my son is a real & present danger to Carmen Miranda’s headgear” conversation.

The waiters continued to make a fuss of the children throughout the meal. The restaurant wasn’t busy – 3 occupied tables out of 10 or so – so attention wouldn’t have been a problem anyway. When the conversation turned (as it does) to the story of Frankenstein, the younger waiter shuffled onto the end of the bench the children were sitting on to hear the story Lily had announced she was going to tell. We never heard the story, as she was giggling too much to say anything. I think that gesture may have made her holiday complete.

As Steve said, if the food had been rubbish, the waiting style would have been overblown and annoying. As it was, it was endearing and helped us to enjoy the evening even more.

And the final touch? In Joel’s words: “Lily, you have to check out the toilets – they’re REALLY swanky!”